There are many types of meetings you can conduct with your team including: status updates, project meetings, brainstorming, or team building.

For a long time, I conducted my marketing team meetings as status updates to keep everyone up to date on what others were working on.

After conducting these meetings for several years, I realized we were using this time inefficiently.

Once the team was established and had clearly defined roles and individuals goals, I realized how inefficient the team status update meetings became. The team knew what each member was doing and they became driven to complete their objectives; frequently meeting in subgroups to make sure key projects and tasks were being completed. The status update meeting became more of a political meeting in that team members became less engaged with updates as they were already aware of the items from the subgroups. I frequently would see members of my team pull out their cellphones, which in my opinion is a failed meeting.

It will be harder to identify this with a virtual/remote team. If communication among the team is strong, they will lose focus and not pay attention to the virtual/remote call. We frequently found when presenting to the sales team, which was mostly remote, the engagement in presentations was less than 50% for some. These individuals would keep the call on mute and work on emails or search the web while key items were being presented.

How do you turn this around?

Clearly defined roles

Have clear communication between team members

Introduce new products or procedures

Request your team brings problems they are having so others can offer help

Use video to keep remote pariticipants engaged

Use this time for team building or group learning like:

– Inviting your staff to break up the stress by playing creative board games that require them to think, yet get them to relax and develop as a team

It doesn’t matter the size of the organization, meetings are a challenge. Just remember to keep the meeting goals clear to the team, and try to have some fun!